Sollecito’s ‘rancour and remorse’ after Kercher killing

The contrast between the families who’ve had their lives turned upside down by the murder of Meredith Kercher could not be greater.

The Kercher’s have maintained a dignified silence ever since their daughter’s body was found, throat slit, in her college bedroom one November night four years ago.

The Knox’s on the other hand have campaigned tirelessly to try and clear their daughter’s name. Not only was she convicted of Meredith’s murder, but her character she has been painted in the most florid terms. Ever since she was filmed smooching with her then boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito in the hours after Meredith’s death, she has been cast as a craven witch unable to control her rage or sexual desires.

So what, then, about Knox’s co-accused, the young man she’d been dating for less than a fortnight when Meredith was killed in the house the women were sharing?

If Knox is freed on appeal, she will return to the USA as soon as she can – a victim of an unthinkable miscarriage of justice but doubtless the target of lucrative book and media deals that will help her put her four years in jail behind her.

Raffaele Sollecito though faces a very different future. The court heard he was a knife obsessed nerd manipulated by Knox’s sexual mores. Sollecito’s lawyer says he entered prison a boy, and has only since become a man. He has just returned to the exams in computer science that were interrupted by Meredith’s murder.

And Sollecito’s father has, like Knox’s family, made every effort to support his son through his first trial, and now his appeal. Last night after dinner at a family pasta restaurant, Francesco Sollecito read out to friends a letter his son had written from jail.

Addressing his friends outside the taverna, Sollecito’s father’s voice by turn cracked and, then boomed.

Raffaele recalled going to the world cup in 2006 in Germany – a year before the murder of Meredith Kercher, three years before he was convicted of helping Knox kill her when their sex game went wrong, five years before his father was reduced to reading out his prison letters from a pavement.

Raffaele described what his life had became. He recalled being in a cage, and of pain in his knuckles as he punched the wall.

Franseco Sollecito’s friends were entranced – but then he read that his son felt both ‘rancour and remorse’.

Remorse? Surely an innocent man feels no remorse? One friend interrupted to ask what Raffaele meant.

“Because”, Sollecito Snr responded, “of what he’s lost”.

Raffaele wrote about missing his mother – and of sitting on her lap as a young boy.

And he recalled a life he has long left behind. His father listed a long list of names – names that his son had written “was convinced he would never see again”.

Does this in any way disprove Sollecito’s guilt? Of course not.

All it shows is while Meredith Kercher’s quiet and humble family are grieving their own tragedy, they aren’t the only ones to suffer.